Family Friday: Ultra Flex 3.0 Kids’ Sneaker

My kindergartener got off the bus, told me I was making the worse day ever even worse and stomped the whole quarter mile home yesterday 20 yards ahead of me (clearly something was up as this is not usual for her). After giving her 10 minutes to cool down, I sat on the floor with her and asked if we could talk about what’s going on. She did her usual non-responsive thing and then picked up an old puppet that happened to be lying around, and introduced him to me. I decided to humor her for a few minutes then go back to my questioning, but then “Grover” started telling me all about what happened at school today. As long as I didn’t look at or address kiddo, Grover answered all my questions. I don’t know if they have been watching conflict management videos in their guidance sessions, as I didn’t think this happened in real life, but I am glad I exercised my patience and leaned into it.

Turns out she and a girl in her class with whom she runs hot and cold, call her A, (and who, at least based on the side of the story I have heard is exercising her emotional manipulation skills as well as doing a bit of bullying (pinching, pushing) with my independent introverted kiddo who desperately wants to be liked) got into a tiff at recess, A told assistant teacher (main was out) my kid needed to go to the principal (which upset my rule follower a lot) and the assistant teacher made my kid sit out the rest of recess because she wasn’t playing with A. In reality, based on how it was described to me, I think my kid (who started the year as a loner and finally seems to be interacting with other kids on the playground) was playing with other kids and they likely were being rude and excluding A (as far as I am aware there isn’t a rule that kids have to play with each other), and so that’s why my kid got punished.

We had a chat about how it’s not OK to exclude people from the group, and if she didn’t want to play with A then she should have let A play with the other friends and gone and done something else herself. For the rest of this kindergarten drama, other than talking with her about using her words in response to the physical actions and stepping away to get out of reach, responding with questions when she is the excluded one, and asking for help from a grown-up if the problem persists, is there something else I should be doing? I hadn’t yet sent a note to the teacher because it seems like regular kids figuring out how to interact socially with each other, but now that it’s resulting in privileges being removed (and sitting out recess is a BIG deal to my kid, that’s always what she tells me is the best part of school), should I? I’m inclined to see if it happens again, especially because it happened on a day her main, experienced teacher was out, but would appreciate the gut check.

So this could be me severely overthinking things, but I’m hoping the hive might have some clever tricks for me.
I’m attending a dinner party to night at a colleagues house. My colleague is from Europe and they’ll be serving traditional melted cheese from their home country (Raclette/fondue). But we are in the US.
I’m just a little over 8 weeks pregnant and I haven’t told any colleagues. I also have not told my toddler who will be with us.
My family was invited to this party several weeks ago, before I became pregnant.
I’m just assuming the fondue is a no-go for me. I’m assuming they put white wine in the cheese and the alcohol will not be cooked off?
I am planning on bringing a veggie tray to share and bringing some sparkling water. I really thought about just telling my colleague I’m pregnant, but I feel like that could backfire at the party if my toddler over hears anything.
I’m also hesitant to white lie that I’m on medication that should not mix with alcohol, because my co-worker’s wife is a Doctor, so I’m assuming she’d just ask what for or what type of medication.
Would a new pretend dairy intolerance be the best excuse?

Have other people had good experience with Skechers? We got my kid a pair of light-up ones for Hanukkah and they are already completely worn out, they have holes in the toe area in both shoes and the velco is totally shot. She’s 5 and not easy on her stuff, but before this she had a pair of Adidas she wore for over a year with much more minimal damage. It’s really put me off the Skechers brand but maybe it was a fluke. Or maybe the light-up shoes are shoddy quality regardless of brand?

My daughter is on her second pair of these shoes. I love that they don’t have laces and she says they are very comfy, but be warned that the sole wears out quickly. She’ll probably be getting another pair before summer even if her size doesn’t change.